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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24548596">Reflections</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremlinny/pseuds/gremlinny'>gremlinny</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableism, Ableist Language, Deafblindness, Gen, Graphic descriptions of injury, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Major Character Injury, No Dialogue, Pre-Canon, Whump, Zuko is half blind, Zuko’s Scar, azula being azula, because that’s a tag that needs to exist, ozai (Avatar) is a terrible parent, premie zuko, zuko is half deaf, zuko was born premature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:06:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24548596</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremlinny/pseuds/gremlinny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko was born in the dead of winter, twenty five weeks into Ursa’s pregnancy. </p><p>Fifteen weeks premature. </p><p>The medics and healers had to cut open his mother’s stomach to get him out, and Azula—years later—would remark that he had never technically been born, but rather removed. Like a tumor.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>442</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Reflections</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this whole thing was inspired by the part where zuko’s like “my father said that azula was born lucky and that I was lucky to be born” and that really struck a chord w/ me bc I’m a premie and I was like. “Oh??? Time To Project!”<br/>This is all very much based on my own experience as a premie.</p><p>just a heads up that there’s a mention of pregnancy and premature birth and a c-section, graphic descriptions of the burn and injuries Zuko got in the Agni Kai, and some ableist language.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zuko was born in the dead of winter, twenty five weeks into Ursa’s pregnancy. </p><p> </p><p>Fifteen weeks premature. </p><p> </p><p>The medics and healers had to cut open his mother’s stomach to get him out, and Azula—years later—would remark that he had never technically been born, but rather <em> removed </em> . Like a <em> tumor </em>. </p><p> </p><p>Ninety-three days pass until his mother can hold him, until he is allowed outside the constant supervision of the healers, until it’s determined that he will live through the night without needing any medical intervention. </p><p> </p><p>Azula is born when Zuko is two years old, and she is everything he is not. Azula is delivered easily and she cries loudly, and there’s not a moment spent with healers except to clean her, and Ursa gets to hold her second child immediately. </p><p> </p><p>Little Azula immediately gains the favor of Ozai. Zuko is far too young to know that this isn’t fair, too busy babbling in response to his mother’s words like a sparrowkeet. </p><p> </p><p>Ursa spends as much time as possible with Zuko, and when he’s old enough to think these kinds of things, he wonders if it’s to make up for the fifteen weeks they should have remained as one, and the three months she didn’t get to be with him after that.</p><p> </p><p>He never asks it out loud. He knows better. </p><p> </p><p>When they’re older, Zuko wants his father’s approval. He loves his mother, but Ozai favors Azula because she is stronger and better, and Zuko decides that he wants to be stronger, wants to be better. </p><p> </p><p>Zuko copies Azula’s behavior whenever he can. He mirrors her actions and parrots her words, and for a while some of the servants think that might be all he’s capable of— mimicking. They talk to him like he’s younger than he actually is, like he can’t understand them. A few sparks short of a flame.</p><p> </p><p>Mother knows what he’s capable of, until she’s not around anymore, and Azula cheers that Father is going to kill Zuko, and he puts up his walls once more and only speaks when spoken to, and the servants treat him like a toddler again, even though he’s ten years old. </p><p> </p><p>Things are different, when Uncle Iroh is around. </p><p>Zuko gets better at speaking for himself, instead of copying. He trains with swords when he’s too frustrated to perfect his firebending.  </p><p>Iroh is patient and kind and he treats Zuko with the sort of respect a young prince deserves. </p><p> </p><p>Iroh treats thirteen-year-old Zuko less like a toddler and more like a small adult. </p><p> </p><p>A prince should be allowed to attend such a prestigious meeting in the war room, after all. </p><p> </p><p>Zuko thinks that if he were to revert back to parroting words, it would be better than this. If he went back to not speaking unless spoken to.</p><p> </p><p>When he’s on his knees during the Agni Kai, he can’t stop the flow of words from his mouth.</p><p>
  <em> Father, please, have mercy. I am your loyal son, I would never defy you, I would never disrespect your orders, have mercy, please, please, please.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The fire isn’t restricted just to his face. It catches on his clothes and the material doesn’t burn, but it melts and drips and <em> sticks </em>. </p><p> </p><p>Banishment. <em> Removal, like a tumor. </em></p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t know how long he spends with the healers this time, but they’re not the same ones from when he was born. </p><p> </p><p>There isn’t a way for the wound to heal “properly”. No amount of herbs or salves will fix it. The only hope is to avoid infection. </p><p> </p><p>It takes weeks before he can remove the bandages, and by then he’d already sailed his way past Fire Nation waters.</p><p> </p><p>His left ear is shriveled and shrunken. He can’t tell which direction the crew’s voices come from— they are either in front of him, very close, or they are very, very far away. His own voice sounds odd now, too. Raspy and angry, and he feels sick when he guesses it’s because of so much smoke inhalation from his own burning flesh. </p><p> </p><p>His left eye is little more than a slit, with a milky cataract obscuring the golden iris. It looks blindly toward his nose at all times, not following the right’s movement. Nerve damage, the same thing that causes the scarred part of his face to move stiffly and slowly, the same reason he’d developed a lisp because half of his mouth refuses to cooperate. </p><p> </p><p>The scar itself is big and ugly and stretched too tight over his frame, snaking down his cheek to his neck and shoulders and arm.</p><p> </p><p>Zuko wants to break the mirror, but he doesn’t. </p><p>He chucks it overboard, and moves on. </p><p> </p><p>He practices with swords until he’s confident enough to learn firebending again. They start over with the basics. </p><p> </p><p>Iroh is patient and kind, and he treats his nephew with all the respect that the former prince deserves. </p><p> </p><p>In the dead of winter, heading into the territory of the Southern Water Tribe, Zuko turns sixteen.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My url on tumblr is castledock if anyone’s interested</p></blockquote></div></div>
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